Total Ionizing Dose and Single Event Latch-Up Characterization of a 16-Bit A-to-D Converter Fabricated in 0.18µm Triple-Well CMOS Process

A radiation-hardened 16-bit CMOS pipeline Analog-to-Digital Converter operated at 10 MSamples per second (MSps) has been tested with ⁶⁰Cobalt for Total Ionizing Dose (TID) in five different operating modes - static and dynamic. The built-in bandgap reference showed <;130 mV output voltage shifts, and the ADC as a whole incurred minimal performance variations versus TID, maintaining up to 74.1 dBFS Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) and 92 dBc Spurious-Free Dynamic Range (SFDR) up to 2 Mrad(Si). Selected converter blocks had previously exhibited Single Event Latch-up (SEL) immunity up to an LET level of 121 MeV·cm²/mg with Au ions. The SEL immunity of the whole ADC up to the same LET level was also confirmed after running a series of heavy-ion tests with the converter operating in all of its static and dynamic modes.